Laura Gilchrist

Show me a school where the power, freedom, and time to learn are in the hands and hearts of the learners--learners being both the kids and the adults--and I'll show you a curious, caring learning community; a thriving school culture!
Bottom line: Until EDUCATORS EXPERIENCE leading their own professional learning, they will have a hard time ceding traditional control of learning to the STUDENTS.
A building of Shiny Happy Teachers, learners on fire, is what every school needs!!

One of our big themes for #edcampKC was visual learning.

We should use art and visuals (create and view them) in learning more than we do, but how? We need some help there. Common Core Standards address this as well.

Lucky for usthere's a method that the Nelson recommends and teaches teachers to use. It is called VTS or Visual Thinking Strategies. A plethora of resources on VTS can be found at www.vtshome.org. The Nelson is well on its way to becoming the VTS hub/training center for the midwest. Watch for training on VTS and educator courses. I'm signed up for all educator art courses in the winter/spring.

If you have any questions about using VTS, these are your (3--it's as easy as 1, 2, 3) people at the Nelson-Atkins! They work with teachers from the greater KC area and beyond. They are looking to SKYPE into classes. That could be into YOUR class. :)

During #edcampKC, Sarah Sims and Rosie Riordan led an activity/discussion/questions on VTS.

Can all teachers feasibly work VTS into their units (all subjects)?!

The heart of VTS'ing a picture is the 3-step method that's easy as 1,2,3...

It's open ended/non-judgmental, inquiry based, taps into emotions, and asks for evidence. 3 questions. Once you do it in your class a few times you can tell your kids to"VTS this picture" and they will know what to do! (...and I'll bet you they'll like it.)

FYI: VTS is a group discussion experience. It is not designed to be individual, although it should start with time to look quietly before sharing and listening. I took part in a VTS activity with art in the Nelson in October. I learned so much and SAW new things and NOTICED new things as a result of sharing by members of the group.

THIS IS IT. 3 QUESTIONS = VTS.

GROUP DISCUSSION.

None of this--> 'That's the right answer, Johnny." Just acknowledge their statements and seek the next hand up. Let each learner share and add to the group's growing knowledge. It's a cool experience.

Now for the VERIZON COMMERCIAL!

Here's an example of people being asked to approach art in an open-ended way similar to VTS. Just saw it on TV after #edcampKC actually, and I thought VTS immediately. It's a nice place for someone unfamiliar with VTS to jump in and see that it is accessible and doable.
Watch this short commercial. What parts the 3 steps above are used? Which are not?

The 'teacher' says the following 2 starter phrases akin to the 1st one in VTS series!
"How do you react when you see this?"
"What do you see here"

He does not follow up with asking for evidence or pushing on, but this is just a commercial looking to make a point. :)

Notice how Verizon used art/visuals/map instead of TEXT and it was effective....both for content and for the commercial. Can you imagine them reading the answer and doing the commercial? LOL

My dream of holding #edcampKC at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, a Kansas City cultural icon, came to fruition on Saturday, November 9th! A heARTy thank you to Adrienne Lalli-Hills who answered a million questions/emails from me and who truly helped make this dream happen! If not for her efforts, kindness, and work, we couldn't have experienced edcamp learning at the Nelson.

Kyle Pace and I had a grand day in the 4th #edcampKC and 1st one at the Nelson-Atkins.

The venue itself took our day and our learning to a new level. The weather was 67 degrees F and sunny. Group picture on the front steps went off with lots of laughs and a funny passerby-camera-dude. A mural/art room complete with Kyle Pace's mom's cookies. The Educator Resource Center where the staff signed teachers up to be on committees with them to help get art into all contents via Skype and more! A packed-house raffle at 3:30 thanks to Kansas City coming through with many awesome KC gifts acquired through JUST CALLING AND ASKING! Raffle was fun.

Our #EdcampKC themes at the Nelson were Visual learning (VTS-visual thinking strategies), Conversation, Learning out Loud, and Reaching out to and engaging the Community.

Kyle is sending out a feedback form to all attendees today along with an attendee badge for blogs or websites. I've already talked with the amazing staff at the Nelson today about #edcampKC 2014. Adrienne has set a tentative first planning date in February.

Our issue of the day was, you guessed it, wifi. We crashed it and people could not access from computers/tablets unless they had hotspots. Once people jumped off, you could get on but it was a frustration we'd hoped would not present itself. It pushed the focus to conversation and people adjusted. We want to erase that problem next year. The Nelson education staff told me today they want to help solve that issue. :)

More blogposts to come on #edcampKC takeaways and on VTS.

Thanks to everyone at #edcampKC. Every person present was an important part of the cumulative experience, the conversations, the learning, and the FUN.

Enjoy the Flickr picture set as your VISUAL story of our day. The set is still growing as #edcampKC'ers send their pictures to my Flickr email address.

Monday, October 28, 2013

TweetOur school's cancer awareness fundraiser was a positive and moving experience because it involved teachers and students working together in FUN for a good CAUSE. Purpose, people!

Ms. Lloyd!

The orchestrator was this lady right here, Ms. Lloyd! She worked tireless hours on this and it happened because of her drive and vision to DO IT. It was a school-wide effort but thanks to her passion and drive it HAPPENED!

Teachers and kids want this to be an annual event. Perhaps at an #edcampNewMark one of the teachers (or kids?) will write this down as a session and work it from there.

Here's how the hour-long assembly was set up!

**Anyone in our school learning community could buy tickets at a dollar each throughout the week leading up to it. The assembly took place in the gym and outside the gym on the blacktop from 8:10-9:10 am.

"100% of proceeds will be donated in an equal split between Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer."

**Buying a raffle ticket earned kids the chance to be picked to do one of the following activities to a teacher during the assembly:

Pie a teacher in the face--9 teachers signed up for this

Flour-bomb a teacher--8 teachers signed up

Escort a male teacher in a dress--7 teachers

Shave a teacher's head--2 teachers

Cut a teacher's hair for Locks of Love--4 teachers, 1 student signed up!

**The Raffle drawings took place the the afternoon before the assembly: Winning students for each of the activities were announced via intercom. They went to the Commons for a quick meeting with Ms. Lloyd about how the fun was going to unfold the next day. :)

The next day the gym was filled with 'us' and with music and applause, and laughs and smiles. Tarps all over one corner of the gym. The events simply played out, one after the other. We ended outside with the flour bombs. All this fun was to help raise awareness of and funding for a serious disease that has affected so many of us.

The Beauty of Flickr: Coach Porras took many of the pictures and we uploaded them to my Flickr account (via our shared Dropbox picture folder). Students who took pictures sent them to my Flickr email address. Once in Flickr they can be edited, tagged, commented on, and ultimately shared.

Instead of keeping this event and celebration within our school learning community, we can share it via pictures on Flickr, blogposts, and tweets. LEARNING OUT LOUD to share with others our day and our experience. Here's to more sharing and caring between connected learners!

Friday, October 25, 2013

So how do you do a vertical panorama?!

I stood in the MIDDLE of the Pin Oak and Red Maple you see below.The trees are actually very close together. You can't see much of the sky in between them.

I selected Pano on my iPhone 5, turned my phone on its side, then SCANNED up into the sky….. from the ground UP the trunk of one tree to the top and then down the trunk of the other tree to the ground again.

Voila.

I took at least 6 panos trying to get the arc just right so that the trees were straight on the top and bottom. LOL Going SLOW was the key.

Suggestions straight from the Nelson educators about how to implement VTS with your students is pictured below.

And the story begins.....

So there I was signed up to take ------->
...at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Date: October 17, 2013. Time: 6:30-8:00pm. Wasn't sure what to expect. I was excited about it, though. A nice byproduct of having #edcampKC at the Nelson is that I've needed to explore it so I'm familiar and can set up experiences educators can learn and grow from on Nov 9th and beyond. I belong to the museum now and am spending more and more time there by choice and desire.

The clipboards!At 6:30 pm, the Nelson-Atkins instructors welcomed us talked to the 25 educators in attendance about VTS strategies as a way to get kids immersed in art and developing their inquiry and verbal skills.

Adrienne then took us, along with our darling cardboard clipboards, to a gallery room to EXPERIENCE VTS! ----->

Here we go from our classroom in the Ford Learning Center (right in the middle of where we'll be for #edcampKC) down the hall and up the stairs to the heart of the art!

We arrive in the room with our focus piece of art, a piece by Max Breckmann called "Baccarat." It's to the left of the center of this picture.

We all assemble around the artwork and our wonderful VTS leader, Adrienne.(Adrienne, by the way, has been instrumental in making #edcampKC a reality at the Nelson. She is truly an art educator extraordinaire and I am happy to be working with and learning from her.)

This is what Adrienne and the Nelson-Atkins instructors let us experience. Adrienne led us through this masterfully and then asked us for our feedback; about how the process felt to us.

Off topic but artsy: I used Flickr's Splash editor to pop the art out of the black and white version.This is Adrienne in action--a quiet VTS kind of action. :)Art: "Baccarat" by Max Breckmann

"What do you think is going on in this picture? What do you notice?"

"What do you see that makes you say that?"

"What MORE can you find?" (Instead of, "What else can you find?")

Adrienne validated our responses and clarified using art terms what we saw. She did not say, "Good job" or "That's right." She honored this open-ended inquiry process, this jumping-into-a-picture activity. She let us interact with it---TOGETHER.My thoughts during the process

When I originally looked at the piece of art I found myself doubting. Inner dialogue went something like this....."I don't know art terms. I'm not an artist." (Got a B- on a self-portrait I did in 3rd grade. I was really proud of that thing. I still remember that feeling. It hurt.) Anyway, I also found myself thinking for a moment, "What is she looking for in this question?" No, no, no. That's what school is too often about and we get used to it; living apart from our own thinking. Learning becomes about what OTHERS want us to think, find, learn.So the first hand goes up in our VTS exercise around "Baccarat." This person says something I hadn't thought of, and once she said it my brain had something to feed off of. The next person went and that person's comment fed off the first comment. The world was expanding for all of us, with each shared view. It went on and on. I'd say about 8 people added to our collaborative view of this artwork. I am much richer for interacting with that piece of art--IN A GROUP of curious learners. Now, every time I go to the Nelson and go in that room, I will have a great memory AND I feel like I have a sort of kinship with that piece of art. VERY STRANGE and COOL at the same time. Powerful.

When Adrienne asked us to share our reactions to VTS...

We felt safe in responding and sharing our observations, thoughts.

It wasn't about who could get the 'right' answer or who had it 'wrong.'

We learned from each other's comments and it made us 'see' things we wouldn't have otherwise seen

It felt positive and non-judgmental

It opened us up to looking at art (an other things) in a new way. We also heard new words, terms, and were curious about Baccarat and what the picture really WAS about. All with a few quiet minutes of observation and group inquiry/sharing.

Okay, so onto the SCIENCE and ART idea I heard Adrienne talking about.

Adrienne said a Science educator she knows uses Pieces of ART and then pictures to kick off her units. They spend time using VTS methods for open inquiry with the art and pictures to create common building blocks in the kids' minds that all future learning in the unit (and beyond) will stack upon.

Mind blown. Of course. I've never used famous art as a kickoff for any unit. I've never used art systemically at all. I know far too little about art and well, I can't wait to change this reality for myself. I have this new world to pursue and explore; one that I think is EXCELLENT for kids and for all learning communities. :)

My next Nelson-Atkins educator class is in November, the week after #edcampKC. The classes beginning in January merge STEM with Art...for STEAM. Educators, sign up here.

#EdcampKC!

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About Me

KC Educator & Instructional Coach Turner HS who believes. I work w/passionate people in KC, KS & MO to get education right for kids. Building community & capacity online at #KCedu #KSedchat #MOedchat and face-to-face #EdcampLDR#edcampKC